


Inventio

by Soffie101



Series: Rhetoric [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Past Life Regression, Slight spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7373404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soffie101/pseuds/Soffie101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There you were, falling. This wasn’t a typical fall down the stairs; you practically were thrown from a tall distance and were plummeting. You could feel gravity pulling you closer to the ground, the anxiety piling on you. You were going to die; you didn’t need to look down to know. Your mind was racing. How badly is this going to hurt? How much longer would you be free falling? Was your sacrifice going to be in vain? Why now? Why so early? You didn’t want to die. You didn’t want to die! God damn it, you couldn’t die!</p><p>As this memory flashed through your mind, you dismissed it as a dream, but was it really a dream? Could something that felt so real be fake?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inventio

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a five part story where the reader is coping with past life regression along with other Attack on Titan characters. Some remember more than others, but all of them are dealing with it in a different way, including the reader.
> 
> Name spelling is taken from Funimation's English dub. The, "original characters," are the other reader characters for each part with placeholder names, which is as follows:  
> Josi Regerence - Jean/Reader  
> Julianna Embrose - Armin/Reader  
> Celia Dolence - Levi/Reader  
> Bethany Rosenburg - Marco/Reader  
> Maribelle Cadence - Connie/Reader  
> If you have a pluggin like InteractiveFics, you can replace these names to your liking.
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read this.

There you were, falling. This wasn’t a typical fall down the stairs; you practically were thrown from a tall distance and were plummeting. You could feel gravity pulling you closer to the ground, the anxiety piling on you. You were going to die; you didn’t need to look down to know. Your mind was racing. How badly is this going to hurt? How much longer would you be free falling? Was your sacrifice going to be in vain? Why now? Why so early? You didn’t want to die. You didn’t want to die! God damn it, you couldn’t die!

As the last thought coursed through your head, you felt the ground hit your back like a speeding train. Upon impact, your eyes sealed shut, but you forced them open; everything was suddenly too bright. The breath in your lungs was shot out of you and any breath you tried to take afterwards felt like fire. You weren’t dead. Yet. The pain reverberating in your head made you wish you were dead, despite your previous plees. Just die. Just die already. Be put out of your misery. Sleep. Fall asleep. Stop feeling the pain. Be stronger. Were you bleeding? You must have been bleeding. Bleed out.

You tried moving your body, but only parts responded. You were able to twitch your fingers, wriggle your wrists, move your arms with much pain. Your legs were another story; as you forced yourself to focus, you realized you could not feel anything from your waist down. Move. Get up and move. Die. Move your legs and get out of here. The pain is too much. Just. Die.

The last thing you saw was a silhouette; the light behind them was too damn bright for you to decipher who it was. They looked down at you before you felt your eyes roll back into your head.

A hypnic jerk; that’s what woke you. You sat up in your bed and scratched the back of your head. You felt slightly dizzy from the sudden movement, but you endured it; as you suspected, it only lasted for a few seconds. You checked your clock. 8:16 AM, Saturday. You didn’t have any classes today. You did have plans regardless: you were meeting a friend, Josi, to have lunch at a cafe near campus.

You thought you were, anyways; those plans might have been screwed up the other day when she was freaking out over something. While you, Sasha, and her were planning to go to that cafe five days prior, when she freaked out, you decided to just go home for the night. You called later that night, and when she didn’t respond, you immediately called Sasha. According to Sasha, Jean was with her all night, and the next day, she seemed fine; Josi said she just wasn’t feeling well before and Jean comforted her. While you didn’t believe that was the end of it, you outwardly accepted it.

It was still early; your original plans with Josi were to meet up at exactly noon, eat, and then go out to see a movie. It was probably too early for a Saturday morning to go texting her about whether the plans were still a go, too. Instead, you pulled out your laptop and logged onto your favourite social media site.

You read a couple of statuses that were on the dashboard, but only one truly stood out. Armin Arlelt was now single. Truthfully, this happened almost two weeks back, but people kept commenting on the status, so it stayed relevant according to your computer.

Armin was an old friend of yours from high school; you even went to prom with him due to the both of you not having dates. About four months after prom, Armin developed feelings for an upperclassman, Annie Leonhart, and of course they started dating within the month. While Annie was a nice girl once she opened up to people, the two just seemed to drift apart; when you spoke on the phone with Armin about the breakup, he didn’t seem too worked up over it and it seemed to have been his idea. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t have a small crush on him(which meant you were a constant liar, denying any feelings for him from Sasha’s teasing), and you couldn’t deny that you were happy he wasn’t dating Annie Leonhart anymore.

You scowled to yourself. That was shallow of you to be happy over someone else’s misfortunes. You knew that if Armin and Annie continued to get along, they could have ended up being a couple everyone would be jealous over.

You clicked on your profile picture. It was a picture of you and Armin from your past birthday, his friends Eren and Mikasa in the background. While you stared at it, you realized again exactly why you’d be happy that Armin was single. His eyes always sparkled like sapphires and his hair was golden blond like the sun. With his arm wrapped around you in the picture, you remembered how happy you were to be with your best friend. The intelligent, gentle young man who put others before himself like a prince.

You exited out of your browser and closed your laptop. You knew you wouldn’t get anywhere by just looking at a picture. Besides, it’s not like you were in love with him, it was just a crush.

You looked back at your clock. 8:27 AM. Not much time had passed since you woke up. You could go back to sleep for a couple of hours, and honestly, that idea was pretty appealing. When you finally decided on settling back in your bed, you heard a sound coming from the kitchen. You weren't nervous about it being a burglar or anything seeing as you had a roommate, but you pulled yourself out of the bed to see what it was.

Your roommate was a girl named Historia Christa Lenz. She was a performing arts major and preferred to be called by her middle name than her first. At the moment, she was in some family disputes; her mother and father divorced when she was a child, and since her mother who had custody over her passed away recently, her father, Rod Reiss, was becoming a bigger part of her life. She was still on the line with what name she would end up taking: stick with Lenz or change to Reiss.

The person in the kitchen was not Christa. Fortunately for you, it wasn't someone you had to worry about. It was Ymir Müller, a close friend of Christa’s, also a performing arts major. According to Ymir, Christa and her had been friends since elementary school and Christa promised to marry her; Christa has yet to confirm that with you. You figured Ymir stayed the night like she frequently does. Ymir claims that she and her roommate don't get along, but you knew that that was an excuse in order to stay closer to Christa.

Ymir was standing at the fridge, drinking milk from the carton. Considering that was from Christa’s side of the fridge, you weren't going to make a big deal out of it. “Morning,” you took the opportunity to say. Ymir nodded to acknowledge you, but continued doing what she was doing. “Is Christa up?” you decided to ask.

Before Ymir could answer, Christa walked out of the bathroom wearing a sundress and small sweater. She almost jumped when she saw you; she didn't usually see you in the morning because she had early morning classes and was out before you. “Good morning, (Name).” she gave you a sweet smile that even made you melt; the boys on campus were right, she really was an angel or goddess.

“Good morning. You two going somewhere?” you said in between a small yawn. Ymir closed up the milk carton and placed it back in the fridge.

“Yeah, we're going to the farmer’s market. Would you like to come with us?” Christa beamed. Ymir made a face of disapproval, but once Christa turned to face her, the expression was gone. This wasn't because Ymir disliked you; considering she was always in your apartment, the two of you learned to get along well. Ymir just wanted to be alone with Christa. Christa on the other hand, while Christa liked Ymir just fine, she also liked you. Arguably, she was the most excited when the three of you spent time together.

You weighed your options: you could go to the farmer’s market, come home, and then go back out to meet up with Josi at the cafe, or you could stay home for a while and then go meet up with Josi. The first option sounded more interesting; you could make it up to Ymir later. “Sounds good. Do you mind if I get ready?” you asked with a smile. Christa nodded and sat down on the nearby couch to wait. Ymir joined her.

“Twenty minutes, tops.” Ymir called over the back of the couch before going back to dote on Christa. You took this as a sign to get going.

You quickly washed your face, brushed your teeth, and slapped on some clothes; you didn’t need to look good just yet. When you stopped home after, you could clean yourself up and look decent. Right now, you looked like an average college student, and that was fine with you. You were three minutes early and had to save Christa from being accidentally suffocated by Ymir’s cuddling.

You hopped into Ymir’s car’s back seat; Ymir had called shotgun for Christa, which was fine with you. Somehow Ymir was able to drive you to the farmer’s market safely, something you were surprised over considering how much she kept her eyes on her passenger rather than the road.

“I’m thinking pasta tonight?” Christa said to the both of you, opening the car door and getting out. You took that as a sign that Ymir would be staying the night again. You got out of the back seat and faced Christa before planning to disappear in the crowd.

“Sasha gave me the recipe for her tomato sauce.” you volunteered to get vegetables for that. Christa’s eyes lit up. If there was anyone that liked Sasha’s food more than herself, it was Christa; she was always happy to give feedback and compliments, and secretly she was a foodie.

“That sounds great!” she giggled, straightening out her dress. Ymir rounded the car and put her arm around Christa.

“If my darling Christa thinks it’s a good idea, then it’s gotta be good. You get potato girl’s recipe’s ingredients and Christa and I will go and get married.” Ymir said, beginning to pull Christa away. Christa gave you a sympathetic look before letting Ymir drag her to their destination; you’d see them later to get a ride back home.

You needed some produce that you could find at the Kirstein booth, and maybe you’d pick up some apple fritters at Connie’s booth for dessert with your flatmates. Reiner, a friend of yours, worked at a booth on Saturdays for his family. He grew up out of town, so on Friday nights or early Saturday mornings, he’d drive out to his family home, pick up some stuff, and sell what he could. He’d bring the money back home on Sunday and get a share of it for his own spending purposes. That’s what Christa told you, anyways. All you really knew was his booth was practically famous for his fritters. In order to keep up with lines, he’d have to get Annie and Bertholt, another friend, to help him.

You pulled out your wallet and headed towards the Kirstein booth. It was a booth run by a nice lady who you didn’t know by name, just by face. She wasn’t there today, though. Instead, it was a young man who you met a couple days prior, Jean Kirstein. You suppose he was the lady’s son; considering you only met him a couple of days ago, you didn’t connect the dots until now.

“Jean Kirstein, I’ll be damned.” you said, shoving your hands into your pant pockets. He seemed surprised to see you.

“Hey, uh... Armin-girl.” he greeted you. Of course. He didn’t remember your name. ‘Armin-girl,’ must have been a way that Sasha and/or Connie described you.

“(Name). Charmed.” you simply said. He nodded in acknowledgment, but you had a feeling this wasn’t the last time he’d call you, ‘Armin-girl.’

“What can I get you?” Jean asked, business like enough.

You looked at the counter of produce. Spying some nice tomatoes, you picked them out and he gently placed them in a bag for you; something you were surprised over considering he looked so brutish.

“How’s Josi?” he asked, tallying the price for your order.

“I haven’t spoken to her much since that day. You might know better than me.” you admitted. He smirked.

“We have been spending a lot of time together.” You felt he was showing off.

“So you two knew each other before Monday?” you asked as he told you the total of your bill. You handed him the money you owed but stuck around to finish your conversation.

“Kind of. We met each other when we were twelve, but I guess time got between us or something.” Jean explained. “We’ve been catching up these past few days.”

“Well I’m happy for you, then. Josi doesn’t really get close to guys; it’s nice to see her taking an interest finally.” you smiled. He gave this confident grin back, but you could see he was embarrassed; his cheeks were slightly glowing.

“Speaking of Josi, I better text her,” you mumbled, pulling out your phone. It was 9:18 AM; a good enough time to text her. While you typed your message, Jean slightly peered over to see, kind of offsetting you. ‘Still going out?’ was all you said.

“Girl’s day?” he questioned.

“Yeah. We’re going out for lunch and a movie with Armin.” you said. He contemplated it for a moment, seeming conflicted about continuing that conversation. You finally cracked after the moment’s silence. “You wanna join when you’re done here?”

He was taken aback but nodded quickly. “I guess I am good company.” Jean gloated. You gave him a small face, to which he toned back his arrogance from. “I’m just worried about her, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. Same.” you pushed your phone back into it’s place and took your bag of vegetables, or fruits per say. “Okay, so we’re meeting up at Rico’s Cafe at noon. See you there?”

“Sure.” he replied before going to attend a sudden customer. “Later, Armin-girl.”

Yep, you knew that was coming. You waved and left. You were in for a long afternoon, weren’t you?


End file.
